Memory Effect Discovered In Lithium-Ion Batteries

rwise2112 writes "Lithium-ion batteries have long been thought to be free of the memory effects of other rechargeable batteries. However, this appears to be not the case. Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, together with colleagues from the Toyota Research Laboratories in Japan have now discovered that a widely-used type of lithium-ion battery has a memory effect."

Comments

paywall derp

[SpaceManFlip]

shit's paywalled man, no good for Freedom Internets

Re:paywall derp

[Vanderhoth]

It's ok, No one here needs to read the article anyway. I kid of course ;)

Small effect big consequences

[geoskd]

The question is: how big is the effect. Even a small effect will cause significant distortions in battery metering, but if the effect is large enough, it will cause the batteries not to last any where near as many cycles as originally believed. This could really suck for electric car owners. Any '07 Roadster owners out there care to share how well the batteries are holding up?

-=Geoskd

Re:Small effect big consequences

[jeffmeden]

The question is: how big is the effect. Even a small effect will cause significant distortions in battery metering, but if the effect is large enough, it will cause the batteries not to last any where near as many cycles as originally believed. This could really suck for electric car owners. Any '07 Roadster owners out there care to share how well the batteries are holding up?

-=Geoskd

According to what I could read of TFA without paying $32, the memory effect is actually seen just during discharge, as a function of distorting the voltage vs w/hr capacity. The overall w/hr capacity of the battery is not reduced, but the ability to exactly determine SOC is diminished at mid voltage levels.

I am not a chemist, so input from someone with more insight on the exact study would be appreciated.

Re:Small effect big consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty accurate. They see a small deflection on what was commonly believed to be a smooth curve near the previous peak charge.voltage. It does not affect the overall charge capacity of the battery over time (what people commonly think about when "memory effect" is used), just the ability of the charge/lifetime remaining software to make accurate estimates.

For all examples shown, a user would be told they have significantly more charge remaining until near that point, then immediately after it would appear their predicted battery life would drop dramatically, and then it would stabilize again. It makes sense that this would be of keen interest to Toyota and other electric vehicle manufacturers.

If their graphs are as accurate, noise-free and reproducible as the figures lead the reader to believe... then the good news is, this effect can probably be accurately modeled and compensated for now that we know it exists. In that respect, it is a significant step forward for Li charge remaining prediction software.

Re:Small effect big consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is: how big is the effect. Even a small effect will cause significant distortions in battery metering,

True, and this is what is seen.

but if the effect is large enough, it will cause the batteries not to last any where near as many cycles as originally believed.

Rubbish. It doesn't diminish the battery's capacity, just changes the q-v characteristic DURING CHARGING. Even if it were a large effect, it's still not going to effect total capacity, or estimating remaining charge by measuring voltage during discharge.

Notes regarding this:
1. This effect is shown in LiFePO4, which is commonly marketed as a "safe" chemistry Li-ion. Laptop and mobile phone batteries almost universally use LiCoO, which is not, AFAIK, addressed in this research. The Tesla Roadster also uses either LiCoO or LiMnO (I've seen conflicting reports -- probably because these two have similar electrical characteristics -- and both have much better energy density than LiFePO4), so your plea to Roadster owners seems a little odd...
2. This effect is caused by starting with discharged battery, charging partially (greatest effect for charging ~50%), discharging completely, then recharging completely. During the final (complete) charge process, the voltage starts at baseline (i.e. full-discharge/full-charge cycle, at the same % charging), increases slightly faster than baseline, so that the voltage difference over baseline peaks at 50% (or whatever state you partially charged it to), then increases more slowly than baseline to arrive at the same voltage when fully charged -- so capacity measured while charging will be overestimated. On the subsequent discharge, however, the q-v characteristic conforms to the baseline -- so capacity remaining will be measured accurately when a device is in use.

And that type of battery is....

[DigitAl56K]

LiFePO4.

Cliffhangers in the summary now?

Re:And that type of battery is....

[afidel]

And I wouldn't call LiFePO4 "widely used", it's hardly used at all in the west due to extremely high royalty rates charged by the patent holders. I'd actually love to use LiFePO4 cells for my camping solar setup but the only ones I can find are dodgy Chinese imports with questionable charge controllers.

Wrong description

[folderol]

I do wish people would stop calling it a 'memory effect'. It's probably the least descriptive term your could apply.

I don't know about Lithium batteries but NiCad cells exhibit a second plateau which gradually gets more difficult for the charge system to punch through. The usual cure is a couple of heavy charge/discharge cycles.

Don't think I want to try that with Lithium though!

Laptop batteries, anyone?

[toygeek]

I've always wondered why they say that Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries don't have a memory effect, when even laptop batteries based on those technologies die after several years, and NOT because of charge cycles. I'm talking about the ones that stay plugged in most of their lives, charging. Maybe its the lack of charge cycles that kills them? But to say Lithium batteries have no memory effect has always been ludicrous to me.

Re:Laptop batteries, anyone?

[Maximum Prophet]

With any battery technology, it's almost never the "Memory Effect", but simple overcharging. If your laptop batteries are always hot just sitting there when the laptop is plugged into the mains, they won't last as long as ones that are properly charged and left alone until they are needed for discharge. With cheap cordless drills and other tools, simple putting a timer on the charger will greatly increase the number of cycles you can get out of the batteries.

Re:No Shit

[thaylin]

Well from the article it is possible to cause it to "forget" the memory so it is understandable why some people see it and others dont see it at the same time.

Re:No Shit

[BitZtream]

No one with any actual understanding of batteries said Li-Ion does not have memory.

What was said is that: From a practical perspective, Li-Ion memory is not an issue to worry about.

The article is basically someone who just did a study to confirm what probably every battery manufacture on the planet knew about Li-Ion at least 15 years ago. Longer I'm sure, I just have no experience before that.

What they did was took something they interpreted incorrectly, and then did a bunch of research to disprove some statement they misheard.

This is roughly like me telling you the surface of the earth is flat when you're building a small house, and then having a bunch of morons who overheard our conversion from 3 tables over do a study to determine that no, infact the Earth isn't flat. Of course its not flat, but from a practical perspective to the man building his home, its flat.

Re:No Shit

[tobia.conforto]

Yes shit. People who "use Li-On[sic] batteries and have to charge them frequently" are simply incurring in an unfortunate characteristic of Li-ion batteries, namely that they have a finite number of recharge cycles, or equivalently, that each recharge cycle diminishes the total charge the battery can hold.*

This has nothing to do with a memory effect.

For comparison, Ni-Cd batteries (as seen for example on power tools) have a strong memory effect, meaning that if you plug them in before they are exhausted, they "remember" the smaller capacity you've used them for, and it takes a number of complete discharge and recharge cycles to restore their full capacity. Of course, all that's needed to fully utilize Ni-Cd is a slightly more expensive charging circuit that fully discharges the battery before switching to recharging, which is why they are widely used in professional applications.

_____________
* Battery-savvy users always keep their mains plugged in on Li-ion devices such as laptops, so that the battery undergoes few recharge cycles and still performs as if it were new when they need it to, even after years of usage. But not after too many years, because Li-ion also have a limited timespan, or equivalently, the total charge they can hold diminishes every second since they leave the factory. Yes, it's a complex world.